Now Ye're Talking - To a Nurse!

Dav

Hello all,

This week we have a nurse who's been in the game for almost 20 years. What do you need me to say about nursing - we all know what nurses do and there's a good chance several of us have been thankful for their care and attention on more than one occasion.

Oh yes, this nurse is a man

Dubwat

Assuming you work in a hospital and see a lot of illness and misery, does this impact on your own lifestyle? In other words, we all have to die of something. So do you live unhealthy and plan to go out early with a bang! Or live healthy and live forever...

Redser87

what do you think of Leo Varadkar as Minister for health?
You do such an important job, thank you!

easygoing1982

Have you ever had voilence (physical/verbal) directed at you.

Are you expected to put up with violence/disrespect from patients or would you be expected to press charges if necessary.

What is your relationship like with the doctors from consultants down to SHOs likewise with support staff cleaners/security

GLaDOS

Have you ever had to deal with a patient carrying an infectious disease that made you concerned for your own health?

Liam McPoyle

Ever had any sexy misunderstandings a la Carry on Doctor etc?

Lisha

Does it annoy you that nurses are now so busy doing paperwork that a lot of interactions with patients like blood pressure temps etc are now carried out by nurses aides?

What would you do to resolve the health system?

What do you hate most About nursing?

I'm A Nurse, AMA

Dubwat wrote: »

Assuming you work in a hospital and see a lot of illness and misery, does this impact on your own lifestyle? In other words, we all have to die of something. So do you live unhealthy and plan to go out early with a bang! Or live healthy and live forever...

I do work in a hospital, and for majority of career that's where I have worked, bar a few shifts in Nursing Homes, certainly witness a lot of misery and illness all right. To be honest I am not the picture of health, drink too much and don't do anywhere near enough exercise.

Vegetarian though, so maybe that's a bit more healthy??

So, live unhealthy and live forever.:pac::pac:

I'm A Nurse, AMA

Redser87 wrote: »

what do you think of Leo Varadkar as Minister for health?
You do such an important job, thank you!

This government wouldn't be my cup of tea politics wise but Varadkar is no better or worse than any of the recent Ministers for health, the cuts from austerity have been dire though, and there has been pretty much nothing positive for patients or staff for the last few years.

I'm A Nurse, AMA

easygoing1982 wrote: »

Have you ever had voilence (physical/verbal) directed at you.

Are you expected to put up with violence/disrespect from patients or would you be expected to press charges if necessary.

What is your relationship like with the doctors from consultants down to SHOs likewise with support staff cleaners/security

Physical violence comes round more often than you'd like, A+E staff would experience it but its actually commonplace on wards too. We get people who are aggressive for a whole host of reasons. Dementia, detox from drink or drugs, chemical imbalance from infection or just general arseholes. You can get hit, quite hard, when attending to some patients personal care, I've often see colleagues go home crying after a shift because they have been, to all intents and purposes, assaulted.

Pressing charges against someone with dementia isn't going to happen and it really isn't their fault. Its very hard seeing kids (mostly grown up children) of patients who were loving, lovely people look at their mums and dads after they've turned in to aggressive, violent, abusive people who have no idea who they are, its very sad.

Sorry, nearly forgot 2nd part of your question, relationship with cleaners and porters is probably closer than it would be with doctors. Mainly because you'll see a doctor for as little as 3 months, and at most a year, bar the consultants, cleaners and the like are all there as long as the nursing staff.

I'm A Nurse, AMA

ScienceNerd wrote: »

Have you ever had to deal with a patient carrying an infectious disease that made you concerned for your own health?

I think you definitely think twice and make sure whatever precautions are advised you follow, be it mask, ore gown and the like, but I don't think I've ever felt concerned for my health from that.

When you get a sharps injury it gives you pause for thought. Basically it means you give an injection to a patient and then stab yourself (accidentally I'd hope!) with the same needle. Its only ever happened to me once, from my own poor practice, when I was student nurse. You get numerous blood tests and wait the days to get the result, that makes you think. Plus you feel a tit for doing it.

I'm A Nurse, AMA

Business Cat wrote: »

Ever had any sexy misunderstandings a la Carry on Doctor etc?

God, all the time, not a day goes by when I haven't groped a colleague, or been groped by one, male or Female, I'm not fussy.


No, not really but I do like a good Carry On film, the standard of patients they had on their wards would be most nurses dream, i.e. feck all wrong with them, walking/talking/self-caring patients!

I'm A Nurse, AMA

Lisha wrote: »

Does it annoy you that nurses are now so busy doing paperwork that a lot of interactions with patients like blood pressure temps etc are now carried out by nurses aides?

What would you do to resolve the health system?

What do you hate most About nursing?

I worked in the UK before Ireland and you're first point is truer there than my current hospital here in Ireland. We have one Care Assistant on our ward of 29, so in reality we still do all the regular obs and personal care as well as all the paperwork.

Resolving the Health System? I'd reopen all the community beds that have closed, I'd reopen all the ward beds that have been closed, I'd reintroduce all the care hours and respite weeks that have been cut from families caring for people at home. I always marvel at how people cope with looking after physically very demanding patients or dementia patients at home, yet their help has been slashed to ridiculous degree, they struggle to cope and either them or the loved one they are looking after (or both) end up as a patient in an acute bed. Seems an odd way of "saving money" to me.

Don't know how you'd pay for it all, I would personally raise tax levels but that would be as popular as the infectious diseases discussed earlier in thread.

I hate the management! I hate that most new bit of paperwork that gets added is usually to protect the hosiptal/HSE from litigation and not for the patients benefit. I hate that every job that is deemed no longer for a certain profession or that service is withdrawn, all of a sudden becomes a nursing job. eg, there's no porter to collect contrast for a CT scan, so either a nurse goes to get it, or the scan isn't done, or the kitchen shuts 2 hours earlier so if a new patient needs tea and toast, that's now a nursing job etc etc.

whiskeyman

Have you , or any of your colleagues confided in you, misdiagnosed a patient, where that patient then went on to become v ill or died?

I can only image this happens more than we think and I really feel for the medical staff in these situations, as they always have their patients wellbeing as priority.

I'm A Nurse, AMA

whiskeyman wrote: »

Have you , or any of your colleagues confided in you, misdiagnosed a patient, where that patient then went on to become v ill or died?

I can only image this happens more than we think and I really feel for the medical staff in these situations, as they always have their patients wellbeing as priority.

As a nurse I don't diagnose, but absolutely I have seen people initially diagnosed with one condition and it turns out to be another, that is the nature of medicine I think. People are annoyed when medics are vague about conditions but that's part of the reason.

It actually happens both ways though, where initial presentation of conditions looks grave and turn out to be completely treatable.

KKkitty

Can you automatically switch off as soon as your shift is over or do some patients cases stay with you?

I'm A Nurse, AMA

KKkitty wrote: »

Can you automatically switch off as soon as your shift is over or do some patients cases stay with you?

I try very hard to switch off, but some cases stay with you allright, both the good and the bad. You grow very attached to some patients, but being honest, you also dread some patients as well. I give the impression to my colleagues that I switch off better than I actually do, no idea why, but I always have. I find the family life at home a great way of switching off, that and a beer watching the telly!

KKkitty

For a time I googled every single twinge and pain and of course Dr. Google came back with scary results. Do people come in after looking up their symptoms online and thinking the worst a bit?

I'm A Nurse, AMA

KKkitty wrote: »

For a time I googled every single twinge and pain and of course Dr. Google came back with scary results. Do people come in after looking up their symptoms online and thinking the worst a bit?

You get A LOT of googling from patients and their loved ones, understandable enough, but its for good reason Boards isn't mad on allowing medical advice, people seem happy to take some randomers experience or advice on a range of ailments over their gp, or doctor or shed load of health professionals, particularly if said randomer happens to be in America, that always seems to give the person more believability and credibility. There is often a load of suggested tests they feel they should have, and can be an issue if they don't get them. Or particular treatments.

"Well I know you said my leg wont grow back, but this man here in Michigan said he got his to grow back by soaking it in bacon fat" or words to that effect.


Nurses are fairly bad for diagnosing themselves with the worst thing it could possibly be, a headache is in fact a brain tumour, persistent cough is TB or Lung Cancer etc etc. Little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

KKkitty

I'm A Nurse, AMA wrote: »

You get A LOT of googling from patients and their loved ones, understandable enough, but its for good reason Boards isn't mad on allowing medical advice, people seem happy to take some randomers experience or advice on a range of ailments over their gp, or doctor or shed load of health professionals, particularly if said randomer happens to be in America, that always seems to give the person more believability and credibility. There is often a load of suggested tests they feel they should have, and can be an issue if they don't get them. Or particular treatments.

"Well I know you said my leg wont grow back, but this man here in Michigan said he got his to grow back by soaking it in bacon fat" or words to that effect.


Nurses are fairly bad for diagnosing themselves with the worst thing it could possibly be, a headache is in fact a brain tumour, persistent cough is TB or Lung Cancer etc etc. Little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.

Do you approve of the internet having medical information online so freely then?

I'm A Nurse, AMA

KKkitty wrote: »

Do you approve of the internet having medical information online so freely then?

It doesn't bother me either way, I think before the internet there was a "well your aunt Betty had a boil like that and it turned out it was the plague" type thing.

No harm in people having the information, I'd question whether some are bright enough to actually filter through all the noise to get to the signal though. That's what's good/bad about the internet, its for everyone, there's no entrance test or educational standard or class barrier, its for all of us, including planks like me.

stop animal cruelty

Worst thing about your job?

leinster93

If you were back 20 years would you go the nursing career route again?
Looking at it from the perspective of the number of hours you have to work each day and the remuneration you get.
With this in mind would you advise a young person to opt for nursing as a career path in Ireland?

I'm A Nurse, AMA

stop animal cruelty wrote: »

Worst thing about your job?

It changes.

The worst thing about my job at present though is the horrendous overcrowding, coming on to a ward with 2, 3 or even 4 beds or trolleys on the corridor of my ward. No curtain, no call bell, no table, no room in notes trolley, no folders for nursing notes and no dignity for these patients. Caring for these people in any decent, meaningful way is nigh on impossible. This isn't a winter pressure thing either, its been going on since last Spring!

I'm A Nurse, AMA

leinster93 wrote: »

If you were back 20 years would you go the nursing career route again?
Looking at it from the perspective of the number of hours you have to work each day and the remuneration you get.
With this in mind would you advise a young person to opt for nursing as a career path in Ireland?

Honest answer? No, I would not do Nursing again. Though I absolutely still enjoy looking after people, meeting some of the best characters you'd ever come across and hope I make my little bit of a difference, the same as everyone else does. It has over the last few years increasingly become a grind, and as I said earlier, any little job or task that has slipped through someone elses net by default becomes a nursing task. I think management respect nurses less and less (even though some are supposedly still nurses), its run on constant audits of this, or surveys of that, new form for this, or new protocol for that.

The financial side of things is OK, not going to plead poverty because its a decent wage I'm on now, I'm at the top of my scale. Different for the newly qualified coming through now, who are significantly worse off than I was at that stage of my career, if they are on relief (like most newly qualifieds in Ireland), they are treated poorly with regard to shift patterns and what they are expected to do. I am lucky enough to be long enough in the tooth to tell them to f*ck off (in more polite terms) if they aksed me to do the ridiculous shifts they get the young ones doing. Like an 11 to 11 shift, where its probably nearer to midnight by the time they get off then start in at half 7 next morning for a long day, then onto a Night the following day, complete head wrecking stuff, and they only do that because the management are too lazy to sit down and work out decent patterns for all the relief staff.

If you really care about people then Nursing still has its rewards but if Healthcare continues the way its going here, and across the water in the NHS, I think the idea of being a nurse on a ward will be an increasingly hard sell.

I'm A Nurse, AMA

Just paid my annual registration retention fee, so I am still officially a Registered Nurse. Great to part with money.

ectoraige

Have you specialised in any particular areas? Does being a male nurse present any obstacles?

NotCominBack

Why is a female nurse called a nurse, and a male nurse called a nurse?

Is it true that if I go to copperfacejacks I'm a dead cert to find myself fighting off the nurses (reason for point one above)?

Lisha

Hi. Serious question I'm not messing.
A friend of mine that works with troubled teens swears that the full moon brings out the crazy in people.
Have you ever thought the same? Or found a&e's to he busier or patients just more difficult to manage at times?

Are essential services like psychiatric service as poorly funded as it seems like? In my experience mental health services are underfunded understaffed and insufficient
Is that upsetting when you know patients are not getting enough care due to lack of funding ?

I'm A Nurse, AMA

ectoraige wrote: »

Have you specialised in any particular areas? Does being a male nurse present any obstacles?

Not specialised in any area, just a ward nurse, did elective Orthopaedics for several years which I loved, Trauma and Ortho then which was very hard work, then for majority of last 10 years I have been on a Surgical Ward (though currently less than a quarter of our patients would be surgical)

No real obstacles caused by being a male Nurse, some women don't want a man caring for them, personal care can be an issue, but that's fine, I completely respect peoples decisions (though they are happy for male doctors to go rooting about as they wish). Its a stereotype of Men in Nursing that they are destined for management. We don't have a single Male off ward manager. Another stereotype would be male nurses are lazy, complete balls of course. Work ethic is not effected by what sex you were born or choose for yourself. You are also sometimes expected to move the heavy patients because you're a man.

I'm A Nurse, AMA

NotCominBack wrote: »

Why is a female nurse called a nurse, and a male nurse called a nurse?

Is it true that if I go to copperfacejacks I'm a dead cert to find myself fighting off the nurses (reason for point one above)?

Do you mean why is a male who is a nurse called a Male Nurse? That's a minor irritation to me. I often get asked how long have I been a male nurse, usual reply is 5 years a Female Nurse, then I got bored and became a Male Nurse.

No idea about copperfacejacks, never had the joy/horror of going there, but I can tell by reading your post you will be fighting them off with a sh*tty stick.